By: Danyaal Amjad, Emile Boutany and Conor Payne
Graphics card
A graphics card is an expansion card which generates output images to a display, most video cards offer various functions such as accelerated rendering of 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or the ability to connect to multiple monitors.

Advantages
- With the more advanced graphics cards you can get better quality graphics, therefore a better experience.
- You can view the graphics of things like computers and TVs etc.
- They are moderately cheap to buy.

Disadvantages
- These do need to be upgraded quite often ergo they're quite expensive in the long run.
- If you want the top model graphics cards these can get quite expensive.

Graphics Outputs
When referring to graphics as an output the main form of hardware referred to is a monitor. The monitor was first created in the 1980s and used cathode ray tubes, with the keyboard physically attached to it.
CRT Monitor
As monitors go this was of course the worst picture quality monitor. By 1981 IBM produced the colour graphic adapter which produced an image quality of 320 by 200 pixels. They then produced a 16 colour enhanced graphics cad producing a resolution of 640 by 350 pixels.
external image monitor_crt.jpg
ore recently produced monitors are LCD and LED.
LCD Monitor
LCD stands for Liquid crystal display, capible of producing higher quality images with higher colour depth as well as being lighter and more energy efficent.

external image dell-s1909wx-and-s1709w-lcd-monitors.jpg
LED Monitor
LED monitors stand for Light Emitting Diode, they are also an improvement over LDC and CRT monitors offering brighter more vibrant colour and well as being more energy efficient and lighter because they are one of the newest type of technology they are incredibly expensive.
external image bigpicture.jpg
here are a few ways to measure a monitors performance, these are in:
Luminance (The brightness of the screen)
Aspect Ratios (The ratio of horizontal to verticle pixels, the most sold apect ratio is 16:9)
Viewable image size (The diagonal length of the monitor)
Refresh Rate (The nimber of times a secon the display is illuminated, usually in Hz)
Display Resoution (The number of pixels in a screen, the most common is 1920x1080, ofter referred to as 1080p)
Responce Time (Time taken for an image to reach the monitor)
Contrast Ratio (Luminosity of the brightest colour, white)
Power Consumption (Measure in watts)
Delta E (Colour accuracy)
Viewing Angle (The maximum angle in degrees, the maximum angle from the monitor which an image can be viewed at clearly)